Re: groff 1.23.0.rc2 readiness

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi John,

At 2022-05-27T00:38:31+1000, John Gardner wrote:
> Please consider #62494 <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62494> ASAP.

I'm afraid I have to say I _have_ considered it; I just haven't mustered
the energy to write a message pushing back on you and Ingo about it yet.

So, here's Mean Mr. Mustard.

Anybody who's read the previous discussion(s) we've had on this list
about it, or the current version of the groff_char(7) man page, will be
aware of my objections (the latter because I think those objections
follow from a historical understanding of troff special characters).

> Otherwise, it's going to piss a lot of users off.

I have no problem adding an item to the PROBLEMS file with a chunk of
groff source that people can put in their site "man.local" or "troffrc"
files to achieve the ASCII-degradation of the five glyphs that novice
man page writers abuse so copiously.

I don't think man pages should have to be written one way for terminals
and another for PDF, whence goes the road you and Ingo are walking.  It
is therefore important to make these ASCII-degradations contingent on
(1) usage of the man(7) package and (2) output to the 'utf8' device.

If it were to go in man.local, it would look something like this.

.if '\*[.T]'utf8' \{\
.  char ' \[aq]
.  char - \-
.  char ^ \[ha]
.  char ` \[ga]
.  char ~ \[ti]
.\}

Is the foregoing enough to satisfy anyone?

If every *nix vendor in the world seizes upon the above and adds it, I
can view it with equanimity.  We can at best model correct behavior in
our own distribution.  I expect I'll have to spend some effort writing
patches against several man(7)-generation tools, some of which are
probably utterly stagnant, unmaintained, and unreceptive, and the output
of which man page writers who don't read any of _our_ documentation draw
upon for imitation.  I harbor no illusion that achieving correct glyph
usage will not be a long road.

Quixotically yours,
Branden

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